July 2025

remembering the ducks

I think about a duck pond
which might be across street from
where
my grandparents lived

a place we were allowed to look at from
afar

or am I thinking of what’s called
the Children’s Lake
in a small
like mine
town
that like
across the street had
ducks
and geese that had better scurry as
folks drive through

and the ducks
and geese there have
in fact
their own speeding limit

I don’t know
the ducks are pretty
and
sometimes seem to me
too fragile
as if God forgot to give them
armor
more than the chemicals that
keep them floating

I don’t know
maybe the chemicals are enough
as are
memories
that come to the surface
and
sometimes have ducks floating
upon them

c l couch

photo by Haberdoedas II on Unsplash

simpler green day near
solstice calls the summer start
then shorter green days

orange autumn day
equinox incites the fire
by red longer night

winter silver blue
longer days the promise bear
by solstice we met

spring the ground awake
spring equinox pale-promised
pastel growth begins

c l couch

photo by Bozhin Karaivanov on Unsplash

Christmas in July

we say that Christmas is December
and yet
because we need not fixed remember
then
there is no reason why
can be no Christmas in July

c l couch

a while ago, a friend was asking why Christmas could not be celebrated in July, not with sales but with services; part of this verse I came up with right away, the rest boiling like plum pudding over years

photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

central Texas

one death we struggle
getting over
so
so how to comprehend a hundred
deaths and
more

storms and floods
destroying
like Time’s rolling sons in
the old hymn

taken
the material and
lively

debating over quick response
especially in a time of
cutting funding
for
all kinds of services

mostly
though a matter
now
of rescue
and the dreadful counting

receiving
aid
enduring then
to take
on
against all pushes of despair
considering
instead how to rebuild

“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” by Isaac Watts
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.
(excerpt)

flooding town next over
(from mine in Pennsylvania)

Carlisle
one day
for storm floods
that were
severe

boating on streets
through town
no chance to pass through
radiating intersections

all the trees and parts of trees
that fell
and the delicate
dangerous dance
with
electricity

now nature helps to dry
in its irony of
having
delivered all the water first

the human focus next
on
taking
finding stock
and then rebuilding

c l couch

photo by Wes Warren on Unsplash

imagining heatwave accommodation
(3 poems)

having a green day

when I think on Robert Louis Stevenson
his verses for children
I imagine a pastel illustration
pale colors of
children at play

there is a swing

which might mean there a book
I’m thinking of
with the picture at
the front
or with
the title

a green-bound book
it seems
though what other color
to represent the liveliness
of play

a green day
washing the gloom away for
children with
a swing to play on
and
with care

summer accommodation

and shall we say
let’s have
a day

get out there
if
shaded from the sun
so that only the light of life gets
through

an appreciate of the colors
paled
beholding all the surfaces
the textures
sights and sounds
things to smell and taste
leaving
what
why
to hear in the surfaces and textures
too

and course through the hours
with a purpose
do our jobs
then toward earned play
(if
a child then with
the understanding that it is
the child’s
job)
to have some trusted company
trustworthy enough
for jobs
and play

a fullness in
the day
accrued regardless of intention
but
but the mind and body worked
into completion
then
the fullness of the night
with rest

while third-shifters
must go
the other way
to
have the filling hours

should we get there

I recall
a picture of a fountain
at La Alhambra

adding imagination
with
the wish to be there
if a moment
to let the spray strike me
the lavishness of
water
for play
in a dry land

how many tour
while I can only hope each time’s
a
treasure

c l couch

photo by Sebastian Yepes on Unsplash

uncommon unsense

the prophet helps
a widow
and
when the prophet needs
ravens helps with food

making up for that business
with the ark

all the people needed food
and so food
fell
needed water
too
which poured for them
from barren places

and so
wandering the wilderness
still cannot
be comfortable
but
at least keep folk alive
meanwhile
by
basics

David thinks he needs Bathsheba
though that is
another kind of interest
not
like food and water
whatever the king might feel
he needs

as he wants
food and
drink
from her

blind
needing sight
the lame to walk
the awful sick to have some healing
that
provides a reason

there are stories
too
of prodigals repenting and returning home
of
good Samaritans while
Samaritans are not credited
so much

of parents withholding stones from children
so that giving
bread
has fulsome space as
well as love

need
and response
and
I suppose when honest
still the answer might be
no
or no
for now

frustrating how the interactions
go
in our relationship with divine
whose terms are
to
keep the evidence
of such
unseen or
otherwise unsensed

c l couch

photo by Vadym on Unsplash

2 poems about consciousness assigned

anthropons

we talk to things
don’t we
our cars
that
if we’re at it
we should praise as well
as curse

I was talking at the ceramic
chickens
some
minutes ago
making sure I would say something to
the roster for
the sake of the hen

and
then there are the Milnes
who watched
to see how Christopher would
react when given
toys

talking to ourselves
I guess
though I think there’s more

an innate
wanting to believe
to have an audience
to have them
by
some listening in the cosmos
hear us
and
respond especially in the way
we’d like

which the mis-anthropons
among us
if there are
won’t engage
or
not nearly enough

to the animals who love us
(if they do)

why did the dog
save
the soldier
how did it know
serving
as a mascot
only

how to do that

and the cats who wake us
to our faces
when
the house afire

then the humpback whale who
journeys back
to visit with the human
specialist
and rapport-provider

as the mammal can and
may
every year

while
this all might be
mammalian

furred creatures breathing oxygen
who
know
each other by degrees

leaving fish
and arthropods
to fend
while we might
get
to know each other

c l couch

photo by Zach Lezniewicz on Unsplash



like inhalation-exhalation in a day


the eternals

breathing
an accomplishment
that mostly our conscious selves
have nothing to
do with
which
is good
or we’d suffocate by distraction

God bless autonomics
though
they were God’s idea in the first place
like
species diversity that course through
the multiplicity of kinds of
media on and of
the Earth

on
or in land
above
below the water
in the sky and as a by the way to feed
our inspirations out of
flying

and then in the vaporous places between
and
who knows maybe dimensions
too

our own multiverse
an interplay of quanta differences
could be helped
by
canalwork of blackholes
(all
sizes)
all of which to say
we might barely know the wonders layered
large or
infinitesimal that sounds close to
infinity

an eternity of
animated
animating choices if
well
fourteen billion years or so


[from the window]

yellow on the trunk
leaves dark green in shade by blue
angled panes look black

there is some green wind
behind it all that is blue
ether wanderland

something old or new
borrowed and the something blue


quasi una fantasia

thinking summer’s not
so bad
until dust and heat
blow in from the street
and I wish for cold of fall
and
could it come
by miracle
tomorrow
and better still tonight

I have some plans that hot
are melting like the water on
the witch
who
ironically has asked before how about
a little fire

well
it’s not bad in that
I am not burning
with flames
anyway
but still I’d like a similar distinction
to the comedy
if sardonic
in that
this one is not for burning


(The Lady’s Not for Burning by Christopher Fry)


things that don’t matter

melted ice cream
if you can get some
or
it’s only on the sides
with firm-enough substance
in
the middle

yelling
unless it’s about traffic
and the thing that’s big and stumbling
uncontrolled in
your way

war
except that the effects are
hyper-
real
as they are horrifying

institutions that grow beyond
their purpose
to serve and instead require if not
demand
serving of them

a wilted flower that matters
but that as detritus
may
feed the next generation
from
the Earth

things that speak to some kind
of annihilation that
be purposed
like the wilting
or
without decent aim
like
the warring


effects to the side

I’m hungry but not hungry
and I try failingly
not
to eat for boredom

but the medication gets
to me
and my digestive systems cries
unfun and
something like how dare you


quaint salvation
(Sunday or Saturday or Friday or another)

today’s for God
but
then
distractions of the devil

ah
we didn’t think so sly
to feed excess as the virtue
thus quietly destroying
or to render
quaint
virtue by its sponsor
truth

which is not
to say
the sabbath should be punishing

quite contrary
the day is for the positives
of
rest for
re-knitting of one’s own
plus
good for sharing
easy play
reflection on
the life one wants
the lives we all
want


a grip

I write in the dark

I guess
I think it’s less distracting

but
(the teacher
shudders)
I have the TV on
and must confess that’s
how I’ve done
a
lifetime of homework

though now the noise and images
are balancing
tinnitus
with insanity

too late
to get the condition
well
impairment
to hope for adaptation

so my daily invitation to go
mad
and trying to create as an alternative

though I hear
craziness might be
required
by great tradition
for
the art


some progress

how much time is left
and
how shall it go

the challenges accumulating
the ones
overcome
the others that add hellish
layers
to
the shell of
consciousness

free movement through
and
through

and when the crises go inside
as if to stay
and years go by
and
breathing’s labored in
its ways

and also all that means

so time
gets harder to go through
much
less command
while maybe years are lessons
that so much control
is either
an illusion or
best kept by someone
from
the start
wherever
and
yes
divine always


the first noel
(Christmas in July)

the angel did not say

but God
to God
and the host
let’s make things
and
by things that must be good

and so the days for
and in
the rings of creation
and all moves in orbits
of creation

the first song
imbued with sacredness
being sung
by
the sacred
source with perhaps more
supernal voices
joining

then comes the new age of noel
the second song to
sing
that after so much time
of sad and tired revolution
more like
a civil war within oneself
drawn
into partisanship

there should be hope for peace
and God
to God will buy that
for you

so we might have purchased
ransomed
dealings with the devil
freedom purchased
like our own
created

created once again

as if Eden recalled
the angel with the sword
finally
permitted to stand
down

then we
as prophesied
might rise


c l couch


photo by Geronimo Giqueaux on Unsplash